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| The competitive scene of the ACM/ICPC qualifiers in Tehran, Iran. (Photo: Mehrnews.com) |
The BK-Eagle team, consisting of three students from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, will compete against teams from 83 universities worldwide in the ACM/ICPC programming competition in San Antonio, Texas, USA, from April 9 to April 13. The contest challenges involve complex algorithmic and practical application thinking.
In this year’s global finals, teams will tackle problems such as determining optimal routing to minimize traffic congestion while ensuring cost-effectiveness or developing optimal network strategies when setting up mobile phone towers to achieve the widest coverage. This tournament will also provide an opportunity for future programmers to become more familiar with Java, Linux, Eclipse, and other open computing standards currently used around the world.
The BK-Eagle team from Vietnam, which has consistently won first place in the domestic “tent” category of collective IT competitions, includes students Nguyen Tuong Quan (born in 1982), Nguyen Dan Thanh (1983), and Pham Huu Ngon (1984).
According to the results of the Vietnam Student Informatics Olympiad in April 2005, the top three teams in the “tent” collective category that passed the online assessment by international ACM standards were the Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology, Hanoi University of Technology, and the Ho Chi Minh City University of Natural Sciences. These three teams participated in the Asia-Pacific regional qualifiers of the ACM/ICPC held in Tehran (Iran), Coimbatore (India), and Manila (Philippines) respectively. Although it was their first time competing, the BK-Eagle students solved 6 out of 10 problems after 32 submissions, with a total time of 1,534 seconds, placing third in the overall standings at the ACM/ICPC qualifier in Tehran, which concluded on December 2, 2005.
Based on the results of the aforementioned qualifiers, BK-Eagle is the only Vietnamese team to advance to the global finals of ACM/ICPC, competing with 83 teams from prestigious universities across six continents (see http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc/Finals). In an interview with VnExpress, Nguyen Tuong Quan shared that the team is actively reviewing past exams to prepare for this upcoming competition. Meanwhile, Pham Huu Ngon stated that BK-Eagle aims to rank in the top 12 teams in the world in the United States. “Each member of the team is responsible for different areas to cover all types of problems,” Ngon said. “However, since there is only one computer for all three, careful consideration will be given to which problems to tackle first.” The team also noted that their competitors from Russia and China have consistently been strong contenders. Universities from Shanghai and St. Petersburg in these countries have alternated winning the championship for the past five years.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nguyen Long, Secretary-General of the Vietnam Informatics Association, which has organized and facilitated participation for Vietnamese teams in this competition, mentioned that in previous ACM/ICPC contests, many Vietnamese students participated but represented foreign institutions where they were studying. In 2005, at the Coimbatore testing site (India), there were nine Vietnamese students (most of whom had won international and national informatics awards) competing under different flags.
Additionally, Mr. Long noted that the global ACM/ICPC organizing committee has approved Vietnam to become the 12th testing site in the Asia-Pacific region after considering strong candidates like Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. This testing site will be organized by the Vietnam Informatics Association at the Vietnam National University in late 2006 (for more information see http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc and http://www.itweek.org.vn).
ACM/ICPC is a prestigious and long-standing programming competition worldwide, with mandatory events focusing on problem-solving (algorithms) and programming skills (team collaboration). Sponsored by the American Computer Society (ACM), the international ACM/ICPC (International Collegiate Programming Contest) was first held in the United States in 1970, with the first finals occurring in 1977. Since 1989, the competition has expanded globally and is headquartered at Baylor University (USA). Teams wishing to enter the finals must pass qualifying rounds held at prestigious universities. Since 1997, with sponsorship from IBM, the scale of the competition has grown significantly, attracting tens of thousands of the brightest computer science students from universities worldwide. ACM/ICPC aims to foster creativity, teamwork, and innovation in software development while allowing students to assess their performance capabilities under high time pressure.
In 2006, there were 6,037 teams from 1,717 universities across 84 countries and territories competing in 197 locations worldwide. Region A, ACM/ICPC Asia – Pacific, had 11 testing sites, with China hosting three of them. The remaining sites were spread across eight other countries. Universities worldwide can register for competition in their respective regions online at http://icpc.baylor.edu/icpc. Each university registers teams consisting of three students and one coach. Before the competition, teams must participate in online qualifying rounds structured similarly to the collective “tent” competition at the Vietnamese Informatics Olympiad. Depending on the examination committee, teams solve between 6 to 10 problems, with correct submissions graded through online automated testing. Teams with the same score are ranked based on the time of their correct submissions. The competition utilizes programming languages such as Java, C/C++, or Delphi.
At each testing site, the top-performing teams from the qualifiers (no more than three teams, with a maximum of one team per university) will advance to the World Finals. This year, 83 teams qualified for the ACM/ICPC World Finals 2006, which will be held from April 9 to April 13, 2006, in San Antonio, Texas, USA. In 2005, the ACM/ICPC champion was the Shanghai Jiao Tong University team from China. Notably, despite having three testing sites, China participated in nearly all eight remaining regional testing sites and secured 10 spots for the World Finals. Southeast Asia has two teams, one from Vietnam and the other from the Philippines.
Phan Khuong
